On May 30, 1431, Jeanne D’Arc—more commonly known to us as “Joan of Arc”—was tied to a pillar in the village of Rouen and burned to death. Nearly everyone has heard of Joan’s unjust execution—but who was this young woman, really? According to a recent survey, one out of every eight Americans thought that Joan […]
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Family Ministry: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Might Go
The first family ministry book I ever read was Family-Based Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries. My first response was to reject family ministry as a preposterous idea in my particular context. It took two years for the struggles of ministry and the work of the Holy Spirit to change my mind.
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Family Ministry: A New Definition for Family Ministry (Part 2)
I delivered this paper proposing a revised definition for family ministry in May 2017 at the HOUSE Conference in Australia, a gathering sponsored by YouthWorks and themed around the intersection between family ministry and ecclesiology. This post is the second part of a three-part series articulating the need for a revised definition for family ministry. Part […]
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Apologetics: Can We Trust the New Testament Gospels?
The witch’s knife plunged deep into the lion’s heart, and the majestic creature quivered and died. For a few seconds, complete silence descended on the movie theater. A slight sniffling beside me broke the stillness, and that’s when I heard my 9-year-old daughter whisper a rather profound word of wisdom to her friend—wisdom that reminds […]
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Church History: William Wilberforce and the End of the British Slave Trade
In late March, 1807, the British slave trade came to an end. One of the key figures in the battle against the British slave trade was an evangelical Christian named William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was short—about five feet, three inches in stature—and suffered from poor health, but he was eloquent and witty. He became a member […]
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Church History: Forget About St. Valentine! Today Is St. Cyril’s Day
The Magnificent Moravian Failures Who Weren’t Failures at All In the ninth century A.D.—four hundred years or so after the fall of the Western Empire—a prince in the land of Moravia asked the emperor of the Eastern Empire to send missionaries to his people. The prince’s motives were primarily political. He needed the support of […]
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Blog: Most-Read Posts of 2016 and Plans for 2017
Around twenty-seven thousand people racked up nearly one hundred thousand views of this blog in 2016. If you were one of them, thank you! Since there are no advertisements on my site, I don’t profit from any of the content. And so, if you’ve profited from what I’ve written, please consider purchasing a book (or two […]
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Church History: The Church Council that John Calvin Rejected
On October 23, 787, the last session took place of the last church council that brought together church leaders from both the eastern and western halves of what had once been the Roman Empire. Centuries later, one of the key Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century would reject what these church leaders decided. What brought church leaders […]
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Church History: How William Tyndale Changed the World
On October 6, 1536, William Tyndale was burned at the stake. He was only forty-two years old or so at the time, but the work he had already accomplished in those four decades of life would change the world. You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker: “If you can read, thank a teacher.” Another bumper sticker—or […]
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Church History: Rome Burned, But Nero Never Fiddled
In late July in the year AD 64, a fire began in the city of Rome that changed the course of history. The fire raged six days before being brought under control. When the smoke cleared on July 23, seven of Rome’s fourteen districts had been partly destroyed and three districts were completely obliterated. Then […]
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Church History: Why Does Church History Even Matter?
Why does it matter if Christians know the history of their faith? Well, imagine trying to sustain a marriage with total amnesia, never fully aware of all the past experiences that you and your spouse have shared. Sure, it’s possible sustain such a relationship—and many people whose husbands or wives suffer from dementia valiantly do […]
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History: An Eyewitness Memory from the Second World War
Whenever I meander a museum, I look for living history. I look for people who may have been alive during the time period that’s on display, and I try to listen. I want to know not only what’s on the plaque beside the glass case–I can find that information in any decent history book–but […]
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Church History: Why the Story of Our Faith Is Bigger and Better Than Facts and Dates
The following is the second half of an interview I did with Baptist Press related to my book and DVD-curriculum, Christian History Made Easy. Click here for the first half. Q: Why is the average person in the pew largely uninformed about church history? A: I think there are at least a couple of reasons: 1) Particularly among […]
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Church History: Why Should Anyone Care About Church History?
The following is part of an interview I did with Baptist Press related to my book and DVD-curriculum, Christian History Made Easy. Professor Timothy Paul Jones acknowledges that plenty of people view the study of history as boring–full of drab facts and dates they’d rather forget. But Jones says it shouldn’t be that way, and he’s […]
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Church History: How Christianity Happened
Easter is certainly a time for celebration, but it is also a time for solemn reflection. We fast and reflect during the season of Lent, then we celebrate the joy of the resurrection on Easter sunday. But what about after Easter? What then? The church has traditionally recognized the season following Easter as a time […]
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Church History: The Legacy of William Wilberforce
March 25th marks the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Great Britain. In 1807 the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act, eradicating the inhumane export of African slaves throughout the Empire. About 25 years following that, slavery would be completely outlawed within the British Empire. The major contributor to this movement […]
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Church History: An Interview with Tom Nettles on the Prince of Preachers
On January 31, 1892, Charles Haddon Spurgeon passed from this life. More than a century later, he remains one of the most widely-read preachers ever. In Living By Revealed Truth, Dr. Tom Nettles distills more than a decade of his own study into the text that now stands as the premier biography of Spurgeon. Here […]
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Family Ministry: Family Discipleship in the Middle Ages and Reformation
With the dawning of imperial favor in the early fourth century and the crumbling of the Roman Empire in the fifth, the primary locus of Christian practice drifted from homes to dedicated institutional structures. Especially in the early Middle Ages, there appears to have been a loss of the ancient model for discipleship in families. […]
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